‘Came to work or enjoy with your boyfriend?’: Bengaluru intern recounts shocking sexist remarks by startup CEO

A UX designer recently took to Reddit to share her disturbing experience while working at a Bengaluru-based startup. Without naming the company, the woman—posting under the handle @akclone—recalled a toxic work culture where humiliation and gender-based harassment were part of her daily life.

‘I was naive… it felt like a dream at first’

She began the job in the final year of her Master’s degree, excited to work as the sole designer at the firm and report directly to the CEO. But her optimism quickly faded.

"I didn’t ask the right questions, and that turned out to be the biggest mistake of my career," she wrote.

The first red flag: public humiliation

As an intern, her performance was supposed to be reviewed after two months. Instead, she was blindsided when the CEO walked up to her in front of the entire team and said:

“I don’t know whether you came to Bengaluru to work or to enjoy with your BOYFRIEND. Mujhe lagta hai tum kaam hi nahi karti.”

Humiliated but determined, she pleaded for more time and eventually earned a full-time position.

Later, when she requested a few days of work-from-home to prepare for her final academic jury, the CEO snapped:

“It’s not my problem that you joined before completing your degree.”

Following a tense investor meeting, he stormed into the office, checked her laptop unannounced, and lashed out again:

“She’s dragging the whole company down. Why talk in private? Bezti sabke samne honi chahiye jab sabko lekar doob rahe ho to.”

She noticed a troubling pattern: the CEO’s aggression was directed only at female employees. “The only reason I wasn’t fired was because I kept pleading,” she said.

The abuse continued. After requesting a half-day leave to shift homes—shortly after another employee lost two family members—the CEO responded callously:

“Mera to bas yahi kaam reh gaya hai, dekhna kaun mar raha hai, kaun shift kar raha hai. Ab se sirf 10 din ki chhutti milegi saal bhar—usi mein decide karo kab kiski maut mein jana hai, kab bimar padna hai, aur kab Diwali pe ghar jana hai.”

‘Porn dekh rahi ho kya?’

As the only woman left in the team, she started sitting separately to avoid the constant sexist jokes. One day, the CEO approached her and said: “Why are you sitting away? Porn dekh rahi ho kya?”

Things took another turn when she asked the CTO about performance appraisals. The CEO abruptly said: “We don’t need a UX designer anymore. You can either leave or join as a Project Manager and bring leads.”

“I know you won’t be a good PM. Some people are just not built to grow.”

He then suggested she could freelance for them—right after saying her role was unnecessary.

“It all felt like a mind game,” she wrote. “Just to make me feel I wasn’t good enough and that he was doing me a favour.”

She finally quit the job.

“I cried that day,” she said. “But I was relieved. He did for me what I couldn’t do for myself—I was finally free.”

‘It broke me’

The prolonged trauma crushed her confidence. “I would overthink even a single line of text. After I left, it took me over a month to even feel like I deserved another job.”

She concluded with a powerful message for others facing similar situations:

“You might think I’m saying this because I was bad at my work. But the truth is, every woman who joined was treated this way. I was just the only one who kept tolerating it. So please, don’t stay to prove your worth to people who prey on young, naive employees.”